Because you can’t have enough of them, I bought myself this beautiful big handmade pillow from Hebben & Houden, made of old woolen blankets. After one of her pillows was in the latest VTWonen, Esther has been very busy making new ones. She also customises pillows, so you can have your own new years whish on your couch soon!

Today, I’ve searched the web again with the keywords “Dresser Danish design“. I love the design of these dressers, but mostly they are too big, too expensive, or I find the color of the wood too dark. I still believe that one day, I’m going the find exactly the one that fits into our home.
Later, I came across this original designed dressers by Kalon Studios. It’s no Danish design, but they must have been influenced by it. I just can’t stop looking at it, and I think that’s what I’m continue to do, because of the tight budget!

Today I visited the Etsy showroom, in the new creatives spot to be: In De Ruimte in Utrecht. A nice selection of Dutch Etsy shop owners showed their handmade goodies. All enthousiastic creatives who wanted to share and talk about their work. For them, it must have been nice to see and hear the reactions of the customers. For me, I didn´t bring enough money.. I´ve bought just a few nice items:
- Moustache stamp from De Krantenkapper.
- 3D cards with 3D glasses from De Krantenkapper
- DIY bracelet from Bint. At home, I checked Corines online shop and I found out she makes the beads herself. That makes it extra special!

I´ve passed the Bebop store a few times the last weeks. Everytime I stop and take a look at the beautiful lamp of Piet Hein Eek. I really like the warm copper design and the way the light reflects on it. But I discovered there are so much more nice copper lamps..

I haven´t been to the Woonbeurs, but from what I´ve seen and read (here, here, here and here) it must have been an inspiring place. Next year I will go as well, but for now I´ve got some nice old designs to show. I´ve rediscovered the work of Dutch designer Bertjan Pot. I still like the duct-taped Persian carpet he made in 2007. Such an original idea. The duct-tape is molted into the textile so it won´t come off. In 2009 Bertjan redesigned the colourfull couch into a more neutral chair; the Lazy bastard. That´s my kind of chair!

Last week, I posted photo´s of the original handmade signs on Paros. I really like to see the effort those habitants of the Cycladic islands in Greece put in making their surrounding look nice. Way back they decided to paint the gaps between the floortiles white, just because it matches te white walls better. Quite some work, but they seem to have pleasure in doing it. There´s even time for some jokes, which made me smile.

But if you would look to the ground only, you´d really miss a great and simple idea to brighten up the sky!

Yesterday, we went to van Dijk & Ko and Neef Louis in search for a tv-cabinet. We didn’t find one, but that didn’t matter, because it’s always nice to wander around the big halls with old (design) furniture. Hidde and Jens had a great time playing with old objects of which even I couldn’t always tell the function. The iron white chair, was the one thing I suddenly felt I had been searching for all of my life. Luckily Jeroen turned out to be in desperate need of it as well. Unfortunatelly it turned out to be a 1950s RUSSELL WOODARD collecters item, price: €650,-. I guess that is a real bargain.. but I decided to just take a picture to put on my blog instead.

Afterwards we wandered a little through Amsterdam North. It´s the part of Amsterdam known for not having the most beautiful neighbourhood. But it’s really upcoming and if you look a little bit further it has real nice area’s: new designed apartments and nice restaurants with superb views on the water. A mixture of new and old industrial architecture. I like the roughness of this area and yet you can feel the energy of the city nearby.

This is such a nice example of creativity. Philippe Starck, designer of the Hotel Mama Shelter in Paris, came with the idea to use inflatable armbands around a fluorescent tube. I like the bright transparent colors in combination with the dark surroundings. I really want to stay in this hotel sometime soon. But first there´s going to be Istanbul, later on this week!

I like everything about this mini goals chalkboard from the illustrator (specialised in hand lettering) Mary Kate McDevitt: the idea to reuse this this old object, the colors (which you can choose yourself), the text on the chalks, the friendly explanation on the back, and the packaging itself.

It was a lovely queensday. We wandered through town, all dressed in orange of course. I didn´t buy that much at the fleamarket, but I´m happy with the nice embroidered pillow I´ve found! It was dirty, I washed it immediately. The bad thing is, it shrunk. So now I´m going to make just a small pillow.. The good thing is, the lightbrown thread in the middle turned out to be white, much nicer than before! I like both sides of the embroidery, and I wonder which side to use. The back looks a little bit more raw and takes of a little of the corny character. I´m going to think this one over.., hopefully I´m going to make a decision, so this piece won´t end up at the fleamarket next year.

But why make a simple pillow from it? In a lunchroom I stumbled across these nice
wooden tree stools. They are from the Dutch company Afgezaagd en Stoffig (something like: Sawn and Dusty). They also make very nice lamps in the same style.